


The Fusco Fiasco

by Konbini



Category: Monk (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, M/M, Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend, S06E04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25002322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Konbini/pseuds/Konbini
Summary: Some talk at the station after Monk's statement is taken makes Leland rethink how he treated Monk as he learns exactly what happened between Monk and Linda."She bared his chest?" A detective chitters, scornfully, "For a normal man that's the equivalent of stripping him naked and smacking him on the ass!"It also makes him think of things he has no business thinking of.
Relationships: Adrian Monk/Leland Stottlemeyer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	The Fusco Fiasco

_"Captain...this isn't easy for me"_

_"Oh really? **What is**."_

Leland had been dismissive when Monk had first accused Linda. Then increasingly angry.

Then, he'd laid his hands on him. That dull thunk when Monk had hit the squad car.

It hadn't been - _that_ bad.

He'd lashed out, sure, but anyone would have.

He'd hurt Monk's feelings, but then Monk's feelings were easily hurt.

He'd maybe forced an uncomfortable truth out of the man -

_"You look at me and you can't stand it. I have what you want. A badge, a woman, a Life."_

_"...that's true."_

\- but he'd still offered to forget it all hadn't he? Wasn't that a gesture of good will despite the distress he'd been feeling? Never mind that it had been condescending and unyielding.

Undoubtedly, Leland had gotten the short end of the stick. He shouldn't have to be feeling bad for Adrian too.

He'd been petty and mean throughout the whole thing. But given that he was discovering his girlfriend, who he'd been going to propose to, was a murderer he figured he deserved some slack.

It was doubly unfair that he got it from everyone except himself.

It had taken Linda, the perfect picture of vulnerability, whispering, "Leland...he was _touching_ me."

And he'd known before he'd even responded in a stupor, " _Monk?_ "

She needn't have bothered to damn herself further.

Leland considers the case open and shut.

He comes back from Hawaii glowering and slighting irritated. He blames it on Randy, but really - who else was he gonna take?

Of course he knows the case is still ongoing, tying up loose ends. That it's been shuffled because he's too close to it. Mentally he knows this. He still isn't expecting to overhear a group of his detectives gossiping about it in the hall.

"Can't believe he turned her down though. Say what you will but the Captain has fantastic taste, someone like Monk should have been jumping at the chance. Once in a lifetime opportunity that's for sure."

It doesn't quite click what they are talking about. Because it doesn't make sense.

"Someone like Monk should take what he can get, never mind a centerfold like that. Hope my wife looks as good at her age. If he were any other man she'd have seduced him in a moment."

Until then, Leland is embarrassed to admit, he'd never given any thought as to why Linda had accused Monk in that particular way other than to discredit him. It makes his stomach knot to realize that yes, something _had_ happened that night between them. The detectives continue joking, obvious to Leland's inner turmoil.

"God, he's defective."

"Can you believe she bared his chest?" A detective chitters, scornfully, "For a normal man that's the equivalent of stripping him naked and smacking him on the ass!"

"Thanks, I won't be able to get that out of my head for a while, you ass."

"Can't believe he refrained himself from asking to press assault charges, knowing him!"

The blood rushes to Leland's ears and he barely hears the laughter that follows.

Monk's statement is videotaped. Leland's hands shake when he presses play. He's not sure why, whatever happened can't have been that bad. Monk had been okay, back in the trailer double of Linda's bedroom. He'd looked...wary, maybe, when they'd found him. Like he was afraid Leland might get angry at him again.

Leland hadn't seen him since then. Hadn't apologized.

He fast forward's through the first part of the interview that is no doubt just an explanation. Presses play and immediately knows he's at the right place.

"And then she asked, 'Are you afraid of me?'" The tinny sounding Monk on the screen cuts through the stillness.

"And how did you respond?" One of the two interviewers asks.

"In the affirmative."

Monk leans forward, rubs a hand over his forehead and makes a distressed noise in his throat before continuing.

"I...maybe I shouldn't have let her bring me to the bedroom alone like that. Before I knew it she had me pressed to the wall and she...she kept undoing my buttons." The little Monk on screen hunches in on himself, then talks fast, words tripping over themselves, "Can we take a break? I think I need to take a break."

"Focus. And just tell us what happened from there." The detectives are gruff and unrelenting.

Leland suddenly regrets not fighting for Randy do the interview.

With some effort Monk continues. The next statement is a little bit of a mess, not congruent to Monk's usual precise wording. His voice even cracks somewhere in the middle.

"She pulled my shirt open and I told her Leland was my best friend, my only friend, that I could never...but she didn't listen and then she started undressing until she was...and I did all my buttons up and then..."

"Then what?" One of them prompts casually when he's been silent too long.

Leland's breath catches in his throat. There can't be _more_. He prays there isn't more. His breath releases at Monk's hurriedly muttered response.

"Then I ran away."

He promptly shuts it off.

Now that he knows the extent of it, he feels both better and worse.

Better, because it isn't something too damaging.

Worse, because he knows he's not going to feel better until he apologizes anyway.

There's a third way it makes him feel. And that is really - he has no business thinking of those things. But it loops in his head is the thing,

_that's the equivalent of stripping him naked and smacking him on the ass_

How Monk would have looked to Linda - a little pressed. Manhandled and messed, scandalized with his shirt torn open - _exposing_ him. It makes Leland's mouth go dry. And then the thought of actually smacking the man's ass - he'd yelp, Leland can see it so clearly. Or Monk naked, eyes shut against his own nudity - completely vulnerable.

Monk would be horrified if he knew Leland was thinking about him like this.

And somehow that makes it even more...erotic. Leland would give anything for it _not_ to be.

It's harder to fight off, harder to dismiss than other times. The strength of feeling equaling those first few months as partners when they'd both had wives and Adrian had looked at him with his big, dark, liquid puppy dog eyes - so brilliant and sweet - and Leland had wanted to-

It wasn't appropriate then and it isn't appropriate now.

He decides to apologize before they have to meet again on a case.

He drags himself up to Monk's front door, paces restlessly for a while, then knocks.

"Oh, Captain." Monk says, and he's still...wary, edging back a little like he's protecting himself because he doesn't know if Leland is still angry or not.

The reaction is predictable. Causes a telltale flutter in Leland's chest.

It melts his heart, just like it always does.

"Can I come in?" He asks, and goes forward without waiting for a response. Vindicated when Monk retreats to let him further inside.

"How was your trip?" Monk asks, then grimaces a little. No doubt he's thinking it should have been Leland's honeymoon, or near to.

"I came to apologize." He says, before he puts Monk any more off kilter.

Monk settles at the words, but he's still distressed.

"That isn't necessary Captain." Earnest and sweet, "I wish it could have been different."

"It is necessary." Leland states, "She was..."

Leland makes a vague gesture with his hand. It'd hurt when she was arrested. He'd barely brought himself to let go of her hand. He'd told her they'd shared something special. It was odd, that after learning about Monk's ordeal with her, he didn't feel that way at all. Not even the ghost of it was left.

"I still wish I could have..." Monk trails off, fidgeting.

"I never said sorry." Leland says firmly, "I wanted to say sorry."

"You know why I had to, right?" Monk says suddenly, searching Leland's face for understanding.

Leland wonders why Monk bothers, they operate at different wavelengths and Leland is always, always behind.

"Couldn't let a criminal walk free." Leland guesses offhand with a crooked smile.

Monk stares at him for a long moment, such that he begins to feel uncomfortable.

"She was dangerous Leland," Monk's voice is dry and pained, "she could have hurt you."

Leland feels touched. It reminds him of the time the boys got to house-sit a puppy who took a shining to him and growled at every stranger they came across with the whole of it's tiny, helpless self.

He remembers Monk admitting he was afraid of Linda and feels like an ass.

Eventually Leland clears his throat, because he isn't sure how to respond to Adrian.

"Would you like to come in?" Adrian asks, offering an awkward smile and gesturing towards the kitchen.

Leland follows him in.

He should say he takes back everything that he said, that he hadn't meant it - unfortunately Monk is too smart to believe it. Instead it'll have to sit between them like that, and Leland hates it.

"I've seen your statement." Leland says damningly, and of course now Adrian is going to realize that's the reason he even came at all.

Monk pauses at that, and Leland can see the exact moment it blossoms on his face that he knows what Leland is referring to. He goes pink. Leland feels himself heat in response.

"I see." Monk says, strained.

He's bracing himself to be made fun of. It's obvious. When Leland opens his mouth to speak Adrian scrunches his eyes shut.

Leland sighs.

"I never imagined she would do something like that." Leland says.

Then promptly realizes what he's said - and he can guess how Monk will take that. Not at all like Leland means. Given what he'd said at the start of the case, he curses himself even more.

"Yes." Monk shakes his head in agreement, "I'm no prize."

It pains Leland to think that Monk thinks if he agrees it will be over faster.

"That's not what I meant." Leland says shortly. "You're obviously..."

_You._

Is what he'd been going to say before he had the good sense not to finish.

"... _me_." Adrian finishes.

Only the meaning is not what Leland intended at all.

"Okay, enough." Leland commands because he knows Monk responds to that, "Your self loathing is starting to grate on me Monk. You're a good looking guy - "

"Captain _please._ " Monk begs, now turning those dark eyes back on him, transparently willing Leland to stop because he thinks it's a tease.

"I'm serious." Leland says, reaches out to cage one of Adrian's fists, "Come on, you've got those damn eyes of yours. I bet Trudy loved those eyes."

At the mention of Trudy Adrian seems to come around, just a little. Leland doesn't waste that small sliver of receptiveness. He continues without a beat.

"Sunkissed skin like bronze. Pink mouth. The timber of your voice, cracking apart like lightning. Hair like ink-"

"like Ink?" Monk interjects quietly, breathlessly.

"Because you can't get the impression of it off." Leland says without hesitation - strokes a thumb idly across the back of Adrian's hand, and gazes at it adoringly, "Soft hands."

It takes a moment for Leland to realize he's said too much.

And if it takes him a moment he's sure that Adrian knew as soon as it was out of his mouth.

And the kicker is that he's said less than half of what he could say.

Something like dread settles in the pit of his stomach and it takes him a long moment for him to look up at Monk, who seems flabbergasted and flushed.

_Pleased._

And of course Leland can barely believe it. But he's lucky because of course Monk wouldn't know - wouldn't _realize -_ and that's a good thing, it is. Of course it is because what would happen if Monk actually knew -

That's as far as Leland gets in his thinking before Adrian turns their hands and interlaces their fingers.


End file.
